Entries tagged with recs

I have been having trouble posting lately; I feel like I can't finish anything, or like I can't manage to write coherent sentences. So this is me saying fuck it, and possibly by the end of the post I'll be down to bullet points, but at least I'll be posting something.

So! The kink_bingo arbitrary mod prizes are a sort of recs list, but they could never include include all the awesome fanworks that I wanted to give prizes to. So here are some other kink_bingo fanworks that I enjoyed, in a wide range of fandoms. (A sad percentage of Mission Read/Listen To/Look At All the Things is spent crossreferencing headers with wikipedia before reading/looking at/listening to, actually. Now I have learned about The Losers! Maybe someday I will even watch it. It could happen.)

oper_1895's bingo. (White Collar, Peter/Neal and Peter/Neal/Elizabeth, all set in the same universe in which Neal is asexual.) ( What I like )

... in other news, guys, I am down to like eight open fic tabs, all of which are giant epic stories of giantness. Wow. Also I guess I might have to read some of those giant epic stories of giantness or something. Maybe I'll finally read The Hard Prayer! (Leftmost fic tab, open at least eight months. Someday I will read it.)

I have decided that my experience of SGA fandom can be summed up by three vids:

Another Sunday by jescaflowne This is for unicorns and rainbows and beanie babies and girl scout cookies and ridiculous AUs and also for laughing at ourselves for taking this show and these actors and especially Joe Flanigan seriously.

What is Eternal? by gnine This is for taking this show and these actors seriously. And ironically. At the same time. Like, I do sincerely believe in Rodney's manpain! And also it's hilarious. I feel like watching this vid is so much like my experience in SGA fandom, because gnine totally makes me buy it, and does these amazing cuts between current!Atlantis and future!Atlantis, and the bit about "judged on a scale that's been heavily weighted" makes me sniffle every time, and it really makes me believe in the team OT4. But then I kind of love it ironically, too, and can't believe that I'm taking it seriously.

Faggot by Gabby (sextagteam). And this is for John Sheppard, the guy who is totally wrong for the action-hero lead, for the commander of a military base, for the military at all. And yet there he is, being a big queer weirdo, throwing himself into suicide missions, always aware of the ways in which he doesn't quite fit. ILU John Sheppard, thanks for making a fandom for me! Also, notice how I've come around again to taking Joe Flanigan seriously? I'd better go watch Another Sunday again.

Man, I have totally lost my System from previous years. These are still from all over the place! I haven't even finished reading in some of these categories! Please send help, or possibly a spreadsheet.

I'm kind of sad about the loss of the most-frequent-commenter stat from the old archive. Not that I could ever be in the top ten by any stretch of the imagination, but because I always enjoyed boggling at how many more stories other people had already read!

It's for her watersports square at kink_bingo. You might think it's an unvidable kink, but she's done it -- using fannish sources. And it's amazing, and brilliantly done, and seriously you should go watch it now. It gives me great joy.

First, two gen stories by laurajv. These aren't officially part of a series, but they are both part of laurajv working out the consequences of the movie. And she's just so good at conceptualizing Vulcans as alien, and at world-building the future as different, and the Federation as a group that doesn't really understand each other, that I just completely fell for both of these stories instantly. These are true stories; this is the Federation, after. They are: The Unveiled Secret and The Word for World Is--.

And What We Don't Talk About by ellen_fremedon. Spock/Uhura, after. I'm not as keen on the world-building here, but I think she's done a really great job of working out what the movie means to Spock, and the choices he has to make now.

2. And now for the whining: I was awakened this morning at six am by street work. Loud, loud street work, and the workers chatting with each other at high volume, and the backhoe scraping along the ground, and the hammers breaking up the asphalt. Which, okay, I could've used a posted warning on the street to let me know -- what if I'd had a car parked here? -- but it is road maintenance season, these things happen, whatever. BUT. THEY KNOCKED OUT MY WATER. SOMETIME BEFORE 6 AM.

Yes. I woke up this morning to discover that I had no water. And since I had no warning, I don't have any in buckets or pitchers anything. So I can't shower, or brush my teeth, or flush the toilet, or have anything to drink. THANKS ROAD MAINTENANCE GUYS I HATE YOU. How in hell did they knock my water out? They're just scraping the asphalt off!

ETA: OH WAIT. Now I have water back. It's BROWN. I nearly brushed my teeth with it, I was so excited. BROWN YOU GUYS. THAT IS NOT A GOOD SIGN.

Guys, for my birthday thingswithwings wrote me the most amazing B5 story EVER. She said she wanted to give me something I didn't have and this is totally it! It's beautiful post-series (sort-of) fic, with all the people I like best. And it's lovely and lyrical and it makes my heart hurt in just the right way.

Go check it out here, but watch for spoilers for basically the whole series.

The top five (*cough*) vids from 2008 that I posted a while back made me think about the vids that I missed when they were first released; I listed my vids in order of download, and I kept thinking "no, that's actually from 2006!" And then I totally wrote half of a post on it, and forgot I'd done so. *facepalm* But still, on the off chance that you too missed these vids in 2006, here are some of the best vids I came to late:

Sunset Boulevard, Angel: The Series, by butterfly (July 6, 2006; it was part of a Vividcon vid show this year)This is amazing, so completely something I wanted out of the show and didn't get. I wish Gunn got to have this kind of coherent narrative, that his sacrifices and choices were made as clear on the show as they are in the vid. I thought I wouldn't like the vid, because it's the John Barrowman version of the song, and I greatly dislike John Barrowman's singing. BUT. This vid triumphs regardless, makes a beautiful thing of Gunn's plots on Angel, and I love it to pieces.

Holding Out for a Hero, Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, by marycrawford (February 27th, 2006; I found it when I went to Mary Crawford's website looking for Improper Dancing)OMG. Just: OMG. I saw that Mary Crawford had done this vid, and thingswithwings and I downloaded it and watched it together, and you guys, I have never occupied the gay male gaze as hard as I did here. Also: I almost can't believe that all of these clips appeared on the show. And I watched it recently. It's a glorious celebration of Hercules-as-hero, pursued by women and drag!Iolaus, and it celebrates Hercules's camp and magical realism and it's just lovely.

Cool Rider, Veronica Mars, by dualbunny (January 22nd, 2006; I found it when I was idly scrolling back through dualbunny's vids)Another great, fun vid -- dualbunny has me in the introduction, which is just completely brilliant -- Logan on his scooter, Weevil on his bike. Man, way to take the awesome Logan/Weevil relationship on the show and pick just the perfect, most hilarious song ever. Nobody else knows what Logan needs!

Joy to the World, Starsky and Hutch, by giandujakiss (December 29th, 2006; I hadn't been much in S&H, and then when thingswithwings started watching, she was like "hey, did you know gianduja did some s&h vids? we should download them!" And then they were awesome.)So, a lot of Starsky and Hutch vids celebrate the angst and the buddy-cop relationship, and hey, I was in the Sentinel in the 90s, of course I love those vids like crazy. But Starsky and Hutch is also great fun: it's fun to watch, it's fun to think about, it's fun to write about. I mean, they go undercover as gay hairdressers twice. And this vid celebrates the fun of S&H -- the Joy-to-the-World, the laughter, the crazy times. It's got beautiful timing, and great clip choice, and it's all about Starsky and Hutch having fun crazy times and laughing at and with each other. I watch it when I'm bummed out, because my bummed out can't survive giandujakiss's awesome verse about the times they go undercover-straight, and the choruses with dancing. Whee!

Five on the Dime, Buffy, by shati (November 6, 2006)and while you're there, download Boulevard of Broken Songs too (September 11, 2006)shati does something awesome with Five on the Dime: she recontextualizes the sacrifices of the Scoobies, especially Willow, around Buffy. Just, completely amazing, the lines she draws between early seasons and later seasons, Buffy's sacrifices and a certain kind of hopelessness.

What About Everything, Babylon 5, by _happyme_ (the original is from 2005; remastered and/or edited August 8th, 2007. sineala sent the link to me a while back when I was lamenting the lack of B5 vids)I really strongly suspect that if you've never seen B5, or only seen three minutes of it, that this vid will make absolutely no sense at all, because it's really fast and really contextual. (Also, if you're a B5 fan? It has season five in it. FYI. Also, I assume I don't have to tell you anything other than that it is a B5 vid, but just in case.) This vid fills me with glee -- it's Sheridan focused, but there's a verse for everybody, and everybody's pain and everybody's growth is in here -- the Ivanova bit is beautiful, the Garibaldi bit is great. _happyme_ has me from the moment of "some stubborn leaves / that didn't fall with the fall" -- it's exactly the kind of foreshadowing, exactly the kind of tentative-hopeful, that B5 is. Also, it has two of the most beautiful lines I've ever seen in a vid, when the song says "I find it hard to complain / when compared with," and it's G'Kar and Londo, their relationship really really fast in those two lines, because this might be a Sheridan vid, but, well. When compared with.

Yuletide presents for me! I didn't get an email about them, but I found them anyway, and look what I got!

From my main yuletide author, I got something I didn't know I wanted -- I asked for The Dude character voice doing just about anything. But it turns out I wanted The Dude voice as he watched the ghost of Donny bowl. Not Undead, Just Not Dead, Big Lebowski.

And I also got a stocking stuffer! A really atmospheric Genly Ai and Estraven in the snow, and Genly's discomfort in his own body as he sees Estraven's body change. Cinders and Snow, Left Hand of Darkness.

*hugs stories*

***

And some stories that were for someone else, but I get to have anyway, in a completely random order: